Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Gagged and Bound

House Republican leaders are expected to introduce a resolution today condemning The New York Times for publishing a story last week that exposed government monitoring of banking records.

The resolution is expected to condemn the leak and publication of classified documents, said one Republican aide with knowledge of the impending legislation.

The resolution comes as Republicans from the president on down condemn media organizations for reporting on the secret government program that tracked financial records overseas through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), an international banking cooperative.

Before September the 11th, law enforcement could more easily obtain business and financial records of white-collar criminals than of suspected terrorists. See, part of the way to make sure that we catch terrorists is we chase money trails. And yet it was easier to chase a money trail with a white-collar criminal than it was a terrorist. The Patriot Act ended this double standard and it made it easier for investigators to catch suspected terrorists by following paper trails here in America.

Let's get this straight: this is not about condemning those who expose government secrets. First of all, it's not really much of a secret, and second of all, I see absolutely shit being done by the House Republicans about anything tied to the Plame leak cast. Nope, all of this just ties back to the main point: a well-oiled ploy by the Republican noise machine (tm David Brock) to grind down anyone who says anything resembling the faintest idea that our current administration is not doing things the right way. We have politicians, pundits, and people who are allegeldy journalists calling for the prosecution of people who have reported on "government secrets" that were either a) out in public or b) very well illegal. This is not journalistic fairness. This is not the rule of law. This is pure intimidation, plain and simple.

And all I can say is, keep speaking. It's clear that Bush and his cronies are still sore about the wiretap issue. How about giving them something to really choke on?